A Broken Soul
by raendown
Summary: Kakashi was born with a counter just like everyone else. But his was different. His was broken.


Kakashi couldn't remember exactly when he first became curious about the marks on his palm. He'd been born with them of course; everyone was born with a counter on their skin somewhere. He did remember asking his father about the blue, ethereal numbers that constantly shifted and changed. He had noticed that when he lay down to sleep at night they glowed ever so slightly, just enough for him to be able to read them in the dark. At first he had only asked of Sakumo their purpose. His Tou-san had explained that the numbers were intended to count down until the moment that he met the person he was meant to be with, his soulmate.

Kakashi could remember frowning up at Sakumo – it must have been even before he entered the academy for the man to have been so _tall_ – and asking why his counter didn't go in order. At first his Tou-san hadn't understood what he was asking. Not until Kakashi had help up a hand that was usually busy holding a training kunai and showed him. The young boy's numbers looked normal at first. They seemed to be counting down to a time somewhat more than only a couple of years from now, which was considered lucky. It took a few moments before the problem manifested itself. Without warning the numbers garbled themselves and suddenly they were counting down to a time more than _twenty_ years from now. A few moments later they flashed back. Sakumo looked on in horrified fascination as the timer in the tiny palm before him oscillated back and forth with no reason or rhyme, no discernable pattern.

"Am I broken, Tou-san?"

At the time, his question had been one of an innocent child. The idea of it hadn't bothered him. Not until later when he entered the academy at five years old and saw just how unnatural his timer truly was. It seemed his was the only one that behaved in this manner. Everyone else's counters marched steadily in reverse and the numbers only changed to count down in a normal fashion. The second day after he entered the academy Kakashi began to wear gloves.

At the time of his innocent questions Sakumo hadn't had very good answers to give. In the way of a protective (and slightly out-of-depth) parent the White Fang had put off his inquiries with vague non-answers and cliché statements like 'I'll explain when you're old enough'. Soon after Kakashi began attending the academy he had come home on a night full of storms to find his Tou-san's body slowly leaking blood on the floor of the study. In the cold empty hours during which the young boy stood frozen and stared at his father's corpse, Kakashi reflected that he had lied. He wouldn't be telling his son anything when he got older. Kakashi supposed, dimly in the back of his shock-numbed mind, that he would never have an answer to his questions. For who would tell him? Tou-san was the only person who had even known about his broken counter.

He was found the next morning by a random member of the Uchiha Police Force. Someone had been sent to check on him when he did not show up for class – very unusual behavior for him. The man had picked Kakashi up, his feet trying to stick to the pools of blood that were drying around his toes, and carried him away without a word. Kakashi only stared at the body of his father and commiserated that he had never asked the man about his own counter. It was a story he wished he'd thought to ask for.

During the next few days Kakashi came to realize some things about his future. Firstly, he realized that since Sakumo was no longer around to receive the hatred of the villagers for his failed mission, Kakashi himself was now to bear that weight. Secondly, he realized that he was destined to spend the rest of his life alone. He was a young genius whose increasing talent frightened his elders; no one wanted to care for the son of a traitor, so he was going to live all by himself now that Tou-san was gone. And he was going to be alone _forever_. His counter was broken and he reasoned that it could only mean one thing: he had no soulmate. It was a heavy thought for a five year old to come to terms with but he made sure that no one saw how it affected him. The hatred of those around him showed him that rules were important (isn't that why they hated Tou-san? He hadn't followed the rules) and rule twenty-five of the Shinobi Code said that a ninja must never show their emotions.

Kakashi vowed that he would be the best ninja there ever was. He would be perfect. Maybe if he was perfect someone might love him even though he had no soulmate.

Graduating to genin at only five years old meant that Kakashi did not have a traditional team to go on D-rank missions with. Nor did he have a jōnin-sensei to instruct him. Instead he was given solo D-ranks and sometimes thrown in to whatever team happened to need an extra body for a mission. He left the village much earlier and much more frequently than any other fresh genin and it resulted in a mishmash of different training picked up here or there when someone could be bothered to pay attention to him. It was during a mission such as this that he first met Namikaze Minato, a man that shone as brightly as the nickname he had earned for himself.

Kakashi hadn't expected anything that day to be different from all the ones before it. He had dressed with care, as he always did, making sure his uniform adhered to all protocols within the code. As usual, the first thing he donned was a pair of fingerless leather gloves that covered the flickering counter that he barely thought of anymore. He didn't bother checking the numbers – hadn't even looked since his father's death – and that's exactly why what happened that day came as such a surprise.

When he arrived at the meeting place his mission scroll had specified he was not put off in the least to see three adults waiting for him. He hadn't been teamed up with anyone even close to his own age since graduating. Ignoring the brunette he knew to be openly hostile and the blond that he had never met before, Kakashi turned to the Hokage, who stood puffing patiently on his pipe. He sketched a quick bow in respect to the old man's position then simply stared at him silently with a blank expression. The Hokage was far from offended, long used to the boy's behavior.

"As prompt as always. We were about to go over a few last minute details." Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled at him. He smiled at everybody. Kakashi blinked and said nothing. The blond that he had ignored made a quiet startled noise.

"Wait, this is the third member of our team?" the man questioned. "Hokage-sama you can't be serious; he's a child!" Kakashi turned his steely gray eyes to this stranger, prepared to level the man with his best glare. When their gazes met, however, he was distracted by a sudden burning in his right palm and a strange vibration that seemed to run from his fingertips all the way to his shoulder. Clenching his fist in an effort not to show weakness, his glare softened in to only a frown even as the Hokage chuckled good-naturedly.

"Perhaps in age but the boy is more experienced than you may realize. He is currently in training for the upcoming chūnin exams." Hiruzen's smoke curled as it drifted about his face, doing nothing to hide the amusement in his expression.

The blond man looked down at Kakashi – in a manner which somehow made it seem that he was not _looking down_ and that immediately set him apart from many – and stared for a few moments with eyes that matched the color of the sky. Then he asked, "How old are you?" Kakashi was surprised to hear no malice in that voice. Perhaps this man did not know who he was.

"I will be six one week before the exam," Kakashi revealed in an even tone, his fist still clenched against the fading burn. He struggled to push the sensation to the back of his mind as he watched Blondie's eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Six…six years old? And you're already testing for chūnin?!" He sounded incredulous. Most people were. "What is your name, child?"

Kakashi scowled at him and snapped, "My name is Hatake Kakashi and I am not a child!"

"The son of the White Fang," the brunette to the side sneered, finally chipping in on the conversation. She looked down on him in a manner that made it obvious that she thought he was scum. "In every way possible." It didn't take a genius to realize that she was deliberately insulting him. He didn't rise to the bait however. Protocols stated that one should make an effort not to injure one's comrades unless it was necessary to the completion of the mission. The mission had not even started yet and he had heard much worse than the likes of her before.

The blond member of their team turned to the woman beside him with a reproachful look that, for some reason, had her cowering away from him as he said in a quiet voice, "I prefer to judge people for myself." Kakashi stared. Blue eyes looked round and caught on his own. They were even brighter when he smiled in a friendly manner. "It's nice to meet you Kakashi. My name is Namikaze Minato and I will be your Captain for this mission. Please work hard!"

The rest of the briefing was a strange whirlwind and Kakashi wasn't sure why he couldn't stop staring at this new person. When their three man cell took off from the village gates he made sure to fall back behind the two adults. The blond made him nervous and the brunette he did not trust. Kakashi was used to being alone; it didn't bother him much. They travelled until nightfall and made camp that first night inside an abandoned bear cave. When Kakashi went down to the river to wash his hands and face he caught a glimpse of the timer on his palm.

The broken counter displayed a countdown to sometime far into his adulthood for thirty seconds before flickering to –

Zero.

Kakashi could feel his body shaking, even if he wasn't cold. It took a full two minutes for the line of iridescent zeroes to garble, flicker, and once again show a countdown to some distant future. Still he stared. A long time passed as he watched the zeroes appear and disappear and even afterwards he could not have described the feelings running through his veins. He felt cold and hot, jittery and calm, serene and panicked. Mostly, he was confused. The memory of a burning sensation and those bright blue eyes filled his mind, taking up all the space meant for other thoughts.

When he finally stumbled back in to the cave the captain was the only one awake. The brunette had fallen asleep in her bedroll. Minato looked up at him and smiled warmly.

"There you are, I was beginning to worry," he said. Kakashi wasn't sure how to respond to that. No one had ever worried about him before.

So he said nothing as he mutely placed himself as far from the older man as he could in the small cramped space. They eyed each other across the fire, one with a face of concern and the other barely concealing the confusion raging within them. The silence stretched and grew thin and Kakashi could feel words pushing at his teeth until he was clenching his jaw in an effort to keep them in. They escaped anyway.

"Do you have a counter?" The question dropped from his lips before he realized he had allowed himself to ask it. Minato's smile had an edge of indulgence.

"Doesn't everyone?" he countered, fingers brushing subconsciously against his collar bone. Kakashi glared.

"Never mind," he growled. Minato's eyes sparkled when he laughed and the glare slid away from Kakashi's face as he looked on in fascination. Something about this man seemed to demand his attention.

"Come on now, Kakashi. What is it? Did you have questions? I could answer them if you like." He made no mention of how obviously Kakashi had no one else to answer his questions for him, not even an allusion to how pitiable that made him. Instead he only looked warm and sincere.

"Can a counter be wrong?" He wasn't sure why that question came first. Couldn't remember ever wondering if maybe his counter was wrong somehow.

Minato tilted his head to the side as he replied, "I have never heard of a counter being wrong before. There are Mismatches but that's not the same as being wrong, per se."

"Mismatches?" the young boy parroted.

"A Mismatch is a rare occurrence. It happens when one person's soulmate doesn't match their own." Seeing the confused tilt of Kakashi's head, he tried to explain better. "What I mean is…okay imagine Person A has a counter that only has ten seconds left on it. They are alone in a room. At the same moment their counter reaches zero Person B walks in to the room. This would indicate that Person A's soulmate is Person B. However, imagine they discover that Person B's counter reached zero three years ago when they met Person C, whose counter also reached zero. So that would mean that Person B and Person C are soulmates and Person A is a Mismatch, who has no true soulmate."

Kakashi wondered if it was possible to be crushed by nothing but the loneliness building up inside your own heart. He avoided looking down at his covered palm. He did not allow any reaction to show on his face. He _absolutely refused_ to cry. His voice was steady when he replied, "I see." And then because he was a genius, too smart even for his own good sometimes, he asked, "Have you met your own soulmate?" The brilliant smile told him the answer before the words did.

"Yes! We met way back in our academy days. I knew she was mine the moment I laid eyes on her!" The blond released a dreamy sigh even as Kakashi fought not to cringe. The urge to cry was even stronger and yet still he tortured himself just a little bit more. He needed to know, to be sure.

"What…does it feel like when your counter reaches zero? When you…find your soulmate?"

The sensation described to him was familiar. He had experienced it only hours before, the first time he had looked in to the eyes of Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Yellow Flash. He felt nauseous. Exhausted. Defeated. Kakashi thought back to a few years before when he had asked his Tou-san if he was broken and wished that he had never found the answer to his question. In a way he both was and wasn't broken. He was Mismatched. He really had no soulmate. The one he had been made for was matched with someone else.

He barely managed to choke out a quiet "Goodnight, Taichou" before tactfully retreating, laying down with his face to the wall as the tears finally broke through his iron hold. Kakashi hated that he was broken. Hated that at five years old he was already burdened with the knowledge that no happiness awaited him. Not even hope was left to him now. Sleep did not come easily that night, nor any of the nights after.

When the mission was over two weeks later Kakashi and Minato went their separate ways. The young boy hid behind the Hokage Tower to watch the blond man depart, wishing he had an excuse to keep the other by his side. But Minato had no reason to think he was special in any way and he supposed it was easy to let go of someone like himself. When his Mismatched soulmate turned a corner and disappeared, Kakashi glared after him as – finally – anger welled up inside him.

He would be _perfect_. The _ultimate shinobi_. He would show Namikaze Minato that counters were _stupid_ and sometimes they _could_ be wrong. Whoever that man's soulmate was surely could never be as perfect as Kakashi planned to be.

As circumstances would have it they did not meet again until a handful of years had gone by. Kakashi turned six, took the chūnin exam, and passed on his first try. He led teams, followed the rules, and earned the hatred of almost every person he was teamed up with. Those who were unfortunate enough to work with him on a regular basis witnessed how every mission that went by seemed to build the walls around him higher and higher, removing him from his own humanity more and more, until all that was left of Hatake Kakashi was a chip on his shoulder and a rulebook in his pocket.

At eight years old Kakashi stood before the Hokage suppressing feelings of rage because protocol said that one must never act dishonorably towards one's Hokage. Even when one's Hokage was a stupid washed up _windbag_ who had absolutely _idiotic_ ideas. A genin team! He was being put in to a genin team with two children who were only just now graduating from the academy! Kakashi seethed in his own mind. These pathetic children were going to slow him down. He was putting every effort possible in to attaining perfection and he needed a challenge to do that! He did not need to be forced back in to doing useless D-rank missions again with losers who would never be able to keep up with him.

When he was dismissed from the Hokage's office Kakashi barely resisted stomping down the hallway. He was so angry that he almost didn't notice the man coming towards him. Until suddenly he did notice and it was like the world had been swept out from underneath his feet, taking his anger with it. Minato looked just the same as he had when they had first met, just as brilliant, just as beautiful. The young chūnin found himself so shaken he forced a quick bow before turning and walking away before either of them could speak a word. He felt the man's eyes curiously following him while he walked away, almost as if trying to remember who he was. Part of him hoped Minato remember him. Part of him hoped he didn't.

The run-in with his Mismatch, as almost non-existent as it had been, was enough to occupy his mind for the rest of the night. The problem of his being thrown on to a genin team against his will was pushed in to the back of his mind until the next morning when he was supposed to go meet his new jōnin-sensei and the others. As always Kakashi dressed with care, pulling on his gloves as he made sure he adhered to every protocol like a good shinobi should. He set off for the meeting place at an easy lope across the rooftops, arriving five minutes before the set meet time. A good shinobi should always be punctual.

Only moments after he had positioned his feet into a solid stance and settled in to wait, the door opened and admitted a girl he vaguely remembered being in his class years ago at the academy. His near-perfect memory provided the name Nohara Rin to go with the purple markings on her cheeks. Rin, for some reason, blushed upon seeing him standing there waiting. She tried to make conversation. Kakashi ignored her.

When the door opened again and a head of blond hair strolled in, Kakashi caught his breath. It couldn't be. The world couldn't possibly be so cruel.

"Ah! Kakashi! It's good to see you again! And you must be Rin-chan. My name is Namikaze Minato and I will be the jōnin-sensei for Team 7." His smile was so bright it was almost blinding. Kakashi did not feel like smiling back. Even as his entire being clambered for him to _stepcloserreachouttouchhim_ he fisted his hands at his sides and kept his face blank. A good shinobi never revealed their emotions. "Kakashi, I hope you will work as hard as you did the last time we made a team."

Rin stared at him with something akin to awe on her face while Kakashi tried to figure out how that statement made him feel. Obviously Minato did remember him and somehow had come away with a positive impression. He supposed that was a good thing. Pride quietly swelled up at the idea that Minato had _remembered him_. Thought about him. Had not simply forgotten him like so much useless chaff the way the rest of the world seemed to do automatically. Determinedly, he wrestled it back down. He hadn't been ready to face this person again but he'd have to make do. He would make use of their time together to start showing Minato how far he had come. How much closer he was to becoming the perfect shinobi.

Someday everyone would wish they had been his soulmate. Someday he hoped Minato would wish it too.

Of course, because life couldn't stop finding ways to shit on him, things didn't go exactly as he had wanted them to. The last member of their team turned out to be another person that had been a schoolmate of his, Uchiha Obito, and the raven-haired boy had such a large personality that he seemed to almost force the attention in any room on to himself. He was loud. And garish. And he made Minato laugh and look happy and Kakashi _hated_ him. Hated him because whenever Kakashi tried to point out what the boy was doing wrong he got scolded by the person he most desperately wished to impress. It confused and frustrated him. Because he was doing it _right_ , damn it, how could he still be doing something _wrong_?

Behind the walls and rules Kakashi simply didn't understand. He wanted Minato (Minato- _sensei_ ) to pay attention to him but it seemed the only attention he got was when he had to be told to slow down, ease up, be gentler, be nicer. Kakashi wanted to go faster, fight harder. He wanted to improve. He did not understand why Minato looked at him the way he did. It wasn't pity or disappointment. It was something in between. It was a sad look that tried to hide behind the man's brilliant smile. Kakashi saw it anyway and despaired. He wanted the man to love him. He didn't want to make the man sad simply by existing. Somehow, Kakashi reasoned, it was Obito's fault. There was just something about the other boy that caused the two of them to clash again and again, somehow always displaying Kakashi's worst traits for Minato to see. In the long list of the faults of Uchiha Obito, that was the worst.

Kakashi held tight to that opinion until the day Obito died.

Kakashi held tight to Rin until the day he killed her.

Changing one's ideals and the way one approaches life is not accomplished in a day. The deaths of both of his comrades ( _myfaultmyfaultmyfault_ ) shook Kakashi's world until he felt he had no ground to stand on. Everything he had thought of as absolute suddenly wasn't. Rules and protocols had been Kakashi's only comfort for years, from age five until he turned twelve. Without them he had no idea who he was or how to be. By fourteen he still hadn't sorted out the mess that was himself.

At that time the only solace Kakashi had was his sensei. His Mismatched soulmate. And a poor solace it was because Kakashi had finally met the woman whose counter matched Minato's. After so many years of shredding his own soul to pieces in hatred of a nameless person he at last stood face to face with her and came to a gut-wrenching realization: there was absolutely nothing to hate about Uzumaki Kushina. She was as bright as her husband, full of life and love. She was warm and friendly. She was a kickass kunoichi and a wizard in the kitchen.

Watching over the red-headed woman as her belly grew rounder and rounder with his Mismatch's child, he finally admitted what he had never allowed himself to acknowledge before: it had never been Kushina that he hated. The one he hated the most in the whole world…was himself. He hated that he wasn't good enough.

He hated that he was broken.

Most of all he hated that he watched how happy Minato was with the life he had and still wished to take the man for his own. He should let the blond be happy. He should disappear in to the crowd and stop inserting himself in to the life of someone who would be better off without him. Minato-sensei was now Hokage-sama. They were no longer student and teacher. There was no longer anything special that tied Kakashi to the man who held his fragile, crumbling heart.

He had no time to detach. Minato died instead.

If Kakashi had thought the pain of losing Obito was bad, he was wrong. If Kakashi had thought the anguish of killing Rin himself was awful he hadn't known any better. The pain of losing Minato was beyond what any human should have to endure. It was pervasive, all encompassing. It compressed lungs and weighted limbs. It almost killed him. When Kakashi realized it had been six days since he had last eaten, he had nothing in him that cared. Only one thought kept him from passing on in to the next life as easily as slipping away in to the night. The cruel truth (and he'd known many in his lifetime) was that even if he died now he would never get to be with Minato again. Kakashi knew what many in the village did not: that the Yondaime Hokage had sealed his soul away with half of the Kyuubi's chakra. Which meant that his soul would never reach the afterlife. Kakashi was doomed to spend the rest of eternity truly, finally, totally alone.

The thought was as crushing as it was freeing. All of the work he had put in to becoming more open, more kind, fell off him like dust in the wind and leaving nothing behind but an empty shell. From that day on Kakashi worked towards one purpose. He was a shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. His soulmate had given his life to protect this village. Kakashi would do the same.

ANBU were not supposed to give out solo missions. The missions they were assigned were generally the most dangerous or the most sensitive. As such, they were duties that should be carried out by teams to ensure the survival of all and the success of the mission. Wearing the mask of the Hound, Kakashi started taking solo missions where his superiors feared to send even a full squad. The name 'Friend-Killer Kakashi' followed him around, resting on his shoulders like a cloak, and he threw himself in to the role because wasn't it the only thing he had ever truly been good at? The only thing no one had ever accused him of doing incorrectly? He had killed Obito. He had killed Rin. He couldn't get there in time: he had killed Minato. Strangely though, few other ANBU died under his command once he worked his way up to the position of Captain.

When Kakashi was seventeen a comrade was injured and it was necessary to remove her mask to treat her wounds. Brunette hair spilled around her face and Kakashi pulled up an old memory of the last time he had worked with her. They had camped that first night in an abandoned bear cave. As he mechanically applied bandages around her head she looked up at him with unfocused eyes and whispered through the pain.

"Before…before I thought you were inhuman." He didn't look at her. "Now I think all you are is empty." She fell unconscious moments later and Kakashi tied off the bandages, replacing her mask with careful precision. Perhaps a few years ago her words might have affected him. But, Kakashi reflected, her words were true. He was empty. He felt nothing. Not for her revelation, not for anything anymore. What was there left for him to feel? When the brunette woman woke up in Konoha hospital she had no memory of the moment they had shared and Kakashi did not care.

The years slid past him like water, trickling steadily, ebbing and flowing. As it does, time eventually dulled the pain. It did not heal the wound as the clichés liked to promise but he learned to emulate humanity, to pretend emotions that weren't there. He even had people who somehow called him friend, although he wasn't really sure what the word was supposed to mean anymore. Wasn't sure what the feeling was when Might Gai accosted him in the street for yet another challenge. Or when Tenzou offered to grow him a new door because someone had defaced his again.

He modeled his behavior off the best example of humanity that he knew: Uchiha Obito. He taught himself to emulate the memories he had of the warmest, liveliest person he had known apart from the one he missed the most. When he arrived late to meetings and briefings he observed the way that others were both annoyed and relieved. Annoyed that he was always so late for everything and relieved that he seemed to at last be healing. Except that he wasn't, not really. Kakashi walked with a slouch to blend in to crowds and carried erotic novels to use as a shield.

Sometimes, when someone had managed to drag him to some social event or another and the alcohol flowed, Kakashi found a brief respite in the sensation of drowning. Three bottles of sake was usually his limit and the numbing effect that drinking gave him was an almost pleasant change. Those night when he stumbled home and held his own hair back over the toilet were the only times when Kakashi let himself _feel_. He was numb on the outside but on the inside he _raged_. Pillowing his head on the cool floor tiles, Kakashi felt anger and despair and loneliness; he felt confusion and envy and self-disgust. The emotions that simply wouldn't come on the best of days rolled through him until he expelled them with the drinks and swirled them down the drain. The mornings after his walls would rebuild themselves again and Kakashi would accept another mission.

Things continued on in this manner until Kakashi turned twenty-eight. Twelve years had passed since the death of his Mismatch and, while he hadn't truly healed, Kakashi had come to understand things as an adult that he hadn't as a child. He understood that the sadness he had seen in Minato was because the older man had wanted him to be _happy_ when he hadn't known how to be. Hadn't known how to simply be a boy instead of a soldier. He also understood that his father had killed himself because he had thought it the best way to protect his child. He'd been wrong but Kakashi understood that it wasn't his fault. None of it made him feel better. Didn't make him feel much of anything without the freeing effect of alcohol.

After living for so long with nothing but emptiness inside him Kakashi was entirely unprepared to come face to face with Uzumaki Naruto. He had unconsciously avoided the son of his sensei for the boy's entire life up until now, unsure of how he might handle the meeting. Naruto, as it turned out, was the exact opposite of himself and everything he feared. Surrounded his whole life by pain and loneliness, the boy was still bright and happy and everything Kakashi could not be himself.

Being jōnin-sensei to Naruto meant spending a _lot_ of time around the child. Being so close to him, Kakashi quickly noticed the raw warmth that he seemed to radiate; a warmth that reminded him of someone he usually tried not to think about. It took a while – a few months – before he began to notice the changes in himself. The thawing of his frozen state. For the first time since he was fourteen years old Kakashi began to _feel_. It was strange. And painful. It was all Naruto's fault. Naruto, who looked so much like Minato and acted so much like Kushina. Kakashi wondered if it was possible to be addicted to a person against his own will.

At that point the jōnin admitted that he was under Naruto's tutelage as much as the boy was under his own. Which is possibly why it hurt so much when Jiraiya took the boy away to train. And possibly why it felt so overwhelmingly good to receive him back two years later. He and the two students that remained loyal to the Leaf formed a team once again and welcomed a new member by the name of Sai and a Co-Captain that now went by the name of Yamato.

It was during a mission along the border of the Village Hidden in the Sound (scouting for Sasuke of course) that Naruto saw his counter. In fact, they all saw his counter. Kakashi had developed certain instincts and battle habits over the years of feeling nothing that others might consider suicidal. Kakashi preferred to refer to it as 'protecting his comrades'. Mostly because that fit with the pseudo-personality he has chosen to emulate. He had fallen back on these habits during a skirmish with a group of Sound shinobi that spotted Naruto and gave chase. Unsure if the teenager in front of him was real or clone, Kakashi had thrown himself in front of the blow of a wickedly sharp nagamaki. The wound that he was unable to fully deflect split him open from the heel of his palm diagonally down his arm, twisting around the limb like the beginning of a spiral. He'd also taken a head wound at one point, which is the only reason that Sakura managed to get his glove off without him really paying attention.

"What…the hell?" The voice registered as his student's but Kakashi was much more interested in keeping his eyes closed to fight the nausea that often accompanied head trauma.

"What is it Sakura?" That would have been Tenzou. Kakashi never called him Yamato no matter how many times his kohai asked him to.

"Kakashi-sensei? Your counter…it…" His eyes flew open and finally he paid attention to what was happening around him. Sakura had propped him against a tree and was holding his right hand in her left, bandages dangling from her free one. She, now along with all the others of the team, was staring at his palm where ethereal blue numbers were calmly displaying a row of blank zeroes. He opened his mouth to say something ( _don'tlookthatdoesn'tbelongtoyou_ ) but he was too late. The numbers flickered and garbled as they had done all his life and the timer changed to count down backwards from a date less than three years away.

"Sakura," he ground out from between his teeth. "Are you, or are you not, going to wrap my wound?"

She looked up at him with wide eyes and demanded, "Has this ever happened before?" He stared back at her with as blank of an expression as he could muster. It was very blank.

"My counter has been broken since the day I was born. Bandage the wound." The horror in her eyes at his blunt statement almost put a crack in his walls. The empathy in Naruto's face threatened to splinter them apart like dry twigs.

They hadn't let him stay silent. Naruto's big blue eyes alone were a deadly weapon against him and he found himself explaining about his counter. That it had always been like that. How it had reach zero with a Mismatch and kept counting down to naught. That he had nothing and no one and had always known it. He didn't phrase it like that of course and most certainly he had not allowed his emotions to show. His two students showed enough emotion for all five members of their ragtag bunch.

The trip back to the village, once he was able, was mostly silent. He noticed the others of the team seemed to walk closer to him than usual although no one spoke to him and he offered nothing on his own. If there was one thing he had always hated it was pity. Kakashi did not want their pity. As he watched Naruto stroll ahead with hands in pockets, humming tunelessly, Kakashi couldn't help but want Minato so strongly it almost drove him to his knees. Try as he might, the wanting wouldn't go away.

Knowing something so incredibly personal about their team leader seemed to convince Naruto and Sakura that they, too, counted as his friends now. It seemed as if every time he turned around one of them was hanging about, trying to engage him in conversation or involve him in some social outing. They showed up at his apartment, when he was out training alone, and even on the rare occasions he agreed to a challenge with Gai. The two younglings were just always _there_ and he wasn't sure how to get rid of them. Or even if he should. Obito wouldn't have gotten rid of them. Sensei…the Yondaime Hokage would have wanted him to look after his son.

Around the fourth time they managed to actually corner him and convince him to accompany them to a team dinner Kakashi paused in the middle of the evening and took a good hard look at himself. It struck him that Minato would not recognize him as he was today. He barely recognized himself. In the years after his sensei's death Kakashi would never have allowed his students to drag him out to the local barbeque place. He would never have accepted students in the first place. The biggest difference, however, was in the way that the emotions he mimicked with such empty accuracy were beginning to find an echo inside his chest. He had started to feel the things he pretended. It was difficult, though, because he had no idea how to express true emotions. He knew how to pretend but when it came to how he really felt no words ever seemed to convey his thoughts properly. And so he went on simply pretending, keeping his small, barely beating heart to himself.

As the threat of war lingered on the horizon, the events going on around their little team picked up the pace. Kakashi found himself one night in the woods with only his two students at his side. Knowing that their enemies could literally be anywhere in the five lands, they had not lit a fire. Darkness pressed in on them from all sides. He thought it was perhaps this darkness which gave Naruto the courage to ask what he did.

"Sensei?" his voice slithered out of the darkness, bringing with it a sense of foreboding. "Can a counter be wrong?"

If it hadn't been for the lack of light the blond would have very likely seen Kakashi's heart nearly beat straight out of his chest. Trying to breathe through the memories of a time when he had asked this boy's father that very same question, Kakashi answered quietly.

"That depends on what you mean by wrong." He waited for a moment, letting his student continue at his own pace.

"Can a counter stop when it isn't supposed to?" Naruto sounded both reluctant and eager. He was desperate for answers but afraid of what they might be. Kakashi knew very well how that felt.

"No, Naruto," he replied. "A counter will stop only when it is meant to. Sometimes it stops with a Mismatch but that doesn't make it wrong." He steeled himself to ask a question of his own. "Were you Mismatched, Naruto?"

At first he heard nothing but Sakura's soft breathing, sleeping only a dozen feet away from them. Then his ears picked up the rustling of cloth and his eyes caught the dull glow of blue numbers, lighting up the dark from where Naruto had exposed his calf. A line of zeroes shone steadily and Kakashi knew before the boy spoke what his answer was going to be. The parts of him that were learning to feel ached with sympathetic understanding.

"When I started the academy and I first met Sasuke. He says his counter didn't stop when mine did. Could he have been lying sensei?" Naruto's voice alone was enough to warn him of the tears even as the smell of salt filled the air. Kakashi closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," was all he said.

When Naruto crawled over and burrowed in to his side he kept silent and allowed it. He said nothing as his student cried and sniffled, whimpering with a pain he knew all too intimately. He allowed the contact long after the tears had stopped coming leaving only distressed trembles in their wake. Naruto wrapped strong arms around his midsection and hugged him tightly. Kakashi wondered if loving someone was always going to hurt like this, a burning in his heart and his lungs, a yearning in his limbs. He draped an arm over the boy and gently patted his back.

Naruto whispered a goodnight to him before slowly returning to his own sleeping bag. Kakashi laid down and folded his arms under his head, staring up at the stars. He hoped Sasuke was lying, for Naruto's sake. He hoped his precious person could someday find the happiness that the universe had denied them both. Neither of them spoke of that night ever again and nothing changed between them. Kakashi wondered sometimes if Sakura knew about Naruto's timer but he refrained from asking. It wasn't his business.

Soon after that war finally descended upon the nations of the shinobi world. Thousands upon thousands of white Zetsu fought alongside reanimated enemies and deceased loved ones, working together to try to end the shinobi world and bring to fruition the insane plans of the one who his identity behind a blank orange facade.

Even years later Kakashi would only remember the war in the brutal flashes of its most painful moments. He would wake from nightmares of a cracked mask falling away to reveal the one who he had lived his life in imitation of, the boyhood friend he never wanted and only learned to appreciate in the moment he had lost him. Obito seemed to care nothing for his pain, for the memories they should have built together.

Kakashi would remember the moment he first saw Madara and knew fear, a cold consuming sensation that had never truly registered in him before. He looked at Madara and he saw the potential for Naruto's death. He vowed to give his own life first.

The battle inside the Kamui dimension would only come back to him in stark images, still frames of the dichotic rage and emptiness on Obito's face, the agony of fighting his first friend. He would be glad the older he got that trauma had taken his memories from him.

But what stood out in his memory, the one moment he would never forget, was the moment he saw _him_ again. The moment he realized that his sensei, his precious lost Mismatch, had been raised from the dead and was there beside him one more time. Kakashi hadn't felt a true emotion since he was a child. He was entirely swept under by the tidal wave that tore him up and crashed through his insides, the simultaneous shining joy and ripping anguish. ( _he'sherehe'sherehe'shere_ ) Minato was as ethereal in death as he had been in life, limned in the flames of the Kyuubi's chakra that had been sealed with him. Kakashi wanted to weep, to fall in to his arms the way Naruto had fallen in to his own. He kept battling instead, every step agony and every breath a chore. Minato had returned and still he could not have him, not even the way he had once, longingly from a distance.

If seeing him alive once more was agony Kakashi did not have words for how it felt to lose him a second time. His Mismatch had not a single thought for him as his spirit left its unnatural vessel and rose towards the afterlife. Not that Kakashi blamed him. Of course the man want to speak with his son. Why should he spare a thought for someone who had been no more than a student to him? Kakashi knew what he was. And he knew he was being selfish. He yearned anyway.

And then suddenly the war was over.

Naruto and Sasuke seemed to watch each other across a vast ocean that was only a few feet across, such was the distance in the gazes they gave one another. Kakashi would have smiled if he could remember how to. Right then, he was sure he would never remember how to smile again. His life was a series of losses and pain and he wondered if he wasn't approaching the limits of how much one person can hurt in a lifetime. He felt tired. He wanted to rest. He had devoted his life to the village because he'd known Minato would not be there in the afterlife to greet him. But he would be now. And all Kakashi wanted was to lay down and rest at long last.

Instead they gave to him the title of Hokage and all the encumberments that came with it. He inherited the Will of Fire with a former student in the cells and broken soldiers in the hospital beds. Kakashi spent a lot of his time fighting a sensation of drowning and wondering when the villagers would realize they had put the wrong man under this hat. He continued to be disappointed every day that no one took it from him.

It was several months after the war when Sasuke's trial finally happened and Kakashi's life went through its final massive change – not that he knew it at first. It wasn't surprising that a lot of people called for Sasuke's death. It also wasn't surprising that Naruto so passionately fought for his life. What was surprising was that it was Sasuke who offered a compromise, one that shook many people right down to their cores.

He offered to bring back the dead.

Sasuke had the Rinnegan eye and with it he proposed that he give his life in service of the village by using the Rinne Rebirth to bring back those who had been lost in the war. Everyone in Konoha was familiar with the power of that jutsu after Pein's destruction of the village. It had taken weeks of debate before the jury had come to a verdict. Weeks in which Kakashi watched sadly while Naruto begged his best friend to reconsider. In the end, Naruto's tears were ignored and the jury ruled to go forward with the plan. Sasuke was to leave behind DNA samples so that the Uchiha clan might one day be rebuilt. In return for restoring his clan Sasuke would give his life and restore the lives of those who had fallen.

"You weren't my soulmate, Naruto," Kakashi heard Sasuke say as he stood guard over their final supervised meeting. He stood as far in the shadows as he could, giving them as much privacy as possible.

"Then I don't have one." Naruto wiped his eye on his sleeve before reaching through the cell bars, trying to touch the one he had spent years chasing after.

"Isn't it better that way?" Sasuke said. "I'm only setting you free Naruto. Go find someone to fall in love with. Someone who makes you happy even if your numbers don't match."

Kakashi wished those words had touched him the same way they touched Naruto. His blonde student looked as if the light of an epiphany had touched him, a slow smile spreading across his face. Kakashi only felt emptier still. He had fallen in love, once. With the one he had been Mismatched to, the one he had lost twice. To try and seek even a shade of that emotion in someone else was inconceivable to him.

Naruto still wept, of course, when Sasuke gave his life. Sakura as well, although her tears were more for the boy she had known as a child rather than the man he had grown in to. Kakashi watched the brilliant lights filling the sky and wished. He wished his ending would as happy as the families who were going to see their loved ones come home, the soulmates who were going to be reunited. He looked down at his glove-covered palm and wondered what numbers were hiding underneath. It had been so long since he looked.

The thing about using the Rinne Rebirth, they realized soon, was that the fallen were reborn in the place they had died. Which meant that soon there would be thousands of very confused shinobi sitting up on a deserted battlefield, wondering what had happened to the war they had just been fighting. Kakashi dispatched several teams to the area to gather the reawakened and inform them what had happened, to tell them all they were free to go home. He also sent word to the other villages telling them what surprises to expect in the near future.

Not long after his teams departed word started coming back about each new person that had been found and was on their way back home. Kakashi was kept busy with each new updated list until finally someone dropped one off on his desk that nearly caused him heart failure. There, in the black ink list of located revived shinobi, was the name Namikaze Minato.

"Someone leaked it to Naruto," Shikamaru was saying, unaware that Kakashi could barely hear him. "He took off, of course. Didn't even wait for permission, the knucklehead. He wants to bring his dad home himself."

"Of course," Kakashi replied quietly, unsure how to feel. His Mismatch was alive. Minato was alive. For real this time and here to stay.

He felt light and heavy at the same time. Light because suddenly life didn't seem like only a burden now. The urge to crawl in to himself and give up was lessened just by knowing that Minato was alive. But heavy too because he knew what life at the same time as Minato would mean. It would mean standing aside for Naruto in a similar way to how he had once stood aside for Kushina. It meant never being as important to someone as they were to him. It meant staying quiet and yearning, close but never touching.

He felt light and heavy because this was going to be torture but it would be the sweetest torture, easier to bear than all of the years he had lived feeling absolutely nothing.

Kakashi buried himself in work and tried not to wait for his student and his Mismatch to return. Each hour of the next few days seemed to drag and stretch until he himself felt stretched, too tight inside his own skin. He checked the clock every few minutes, driving himself mad until finally while walking through the park on his way back from a much needed lunch break he realized he could feel two very familiar chakra signatures approaching. He stopped dead in his tracks and waited, unable to turn around even when he heard his name being called.

"Kaka-sensei!" Naruto barreled in to him and he stumbled a few steps forward. "Finally! You'll help me right?"

"Help you?" he mumbled. He could feel the brilliant fire of Minato's chakra coming towards him at a slightly slower pace, could just picture the amused grin that would be on his face. It took a moment for Naruto's words to register.

"Yeah! Help me make dad feel better!" Naruto let go of him and scampered around so they could see each other and give him a big sunny smile. "He's being all weird because his counter started again when he got revived but I told him about _your_ counter and how it's all weird and he's not the only one whose counter is funny. Tell him, sensei! Tell him it's not so bad!"

Kakashi fought the urge to say that yes, it really was that bad. Instead he just shook his head and shooed Naruto away from him. He shivered as a familiar laughed teased past his ears.

"Hello Kakashi."

He took a deep breath and swallowed thickly before turning around, not even caring that his student could see the braced expression on his face. When he did he kept his head lowered a little, buying himself just a little extra time.

Then he looked up and for a moment he thought the world might end.

His palm was burning and there were strange vibrations running from his fingertips all the way up to his shoulder. Kakashi froze in place, staring in to Minato's eyes and experiencing a sensation he had only felt once before in his life, a sensation most people only ever experienced that one time. Minato stared back at him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, paused in mid-step and looking as stunned as Kakashi was feeling.

"Kakashi," Minato spoke in a very soft voice, hand pressed over his collarbone. "Did you just…?" Kakashi nodded slowly. His timer had reached zero the moment they had looked in to each other's eyes. Kakashi finally understood why he had been born with a broken timer. It wasn't broken. He had been destined to meet the same man twice, to match with him first when they couldn't be together and then again when he was granted a second life. "How is this possible? This isn't…this is impossible."

Ice rushed down his spine at Minato's words and the look on his face. He looked horrified, Kakashi thought. Devastated. He remembered that Naruto had been saying Minato was upset to have a new timer and he realized the true hell of the paradise that had just been handed to him: Minato would have been revived with his memories picking up right from the moment he was last alive. And in his memories he would still have been in love with Kushina.

His Match ( _matchfinallyamatch_ )( _stillunwanted_ ) looked impossibly more shocked to see tears suddenly spill out from his eyes to soak in to his mask. Kakashi trembled and clutched his hand to his chest, unable to form words. They stared at each other as Kakashi cried and Naruto fluttered around demanding to know what just happened.

Kakashi did the only thing he could. He ran.

He appeared moments later in the apartment he had moved in to after the village had been rebuilt, stumbling to his bed and collapsing there. He pulled his knees in to his chest and buried his face in his still burning palm. He couldn't remember the last time he cried. Maybe it was as long ago as the last time this had happened, the last time he had looked in to the eyes of Namikaze Minato and felt the crushing weight of fate. It felt horrible to do it again. He had forgotten the feeling of sobbing, the lack of breath and the burning eyes and the way it rocked his entire body. It was so all consuming he nearly missed the sound of his window being slid open.

"Fuck off," he managed to gasp out. He felt a surprised flicker of chakra and only barely recognized Naruto over the maelstrom going on inside his chest.

"Sensei…dad says you guys Matched. Are you that upset about it? Isn't it…I mean, didn't you want a Match?" Naruto sounded wary and confused. Kakashi muffled a desperate noise in the solid, unblinking zeroes in his skin.

"I can't do this again Naruto," he whispered, unable to make his voice louder. "I can't. He doesn't want me again and I _can't_." He was distantly aware that his blubbering was indistinct and made little sense but he couldn't find it in him to care.

"Wait, again?" Naruto gasped in that overdramatic way of his. "Wha-! Was my dad your Mismatch last time too!?"

As he nodded miserably he felt a second flicker of chakra and curled tighter in to himself, feeling like an idiot. Of course Minato had followed his son. Of course. He'd been too wrapped up in himself to realize that the other man wouldn't let him go without talking about this. A long silence stretched in which Kakashi made no effort to turn and see what was happening behind him.

"Naruto I think this is a conversation that should be between Kakashi and myself," he heard Minato say. Naruto agreed only reluctantly to leave and suddenly the two of them were alone. Kakashi marveled that he finally had Minato alive with him and the first impression he gave of himself was a sobbing mess. Wonderful.

He felt the bed dip and a small whine escaped him. A hand on his shoulder made him freeze. Right away he felt the appendage lift back off of him and awkwardly retract like Minato was afraid he had made the wrong move.

"You never told me you Mismatched with me," Minato said to him.

Kakashi hiccupped embarrassingly before his words would come out. "I tried so hard to be perfect. I wanted to make you love me even though you weren't Matched to me." He clenched his fist then opened it again. "But I could never do anything right. And it was pointless anyway. You had Kushina. She was wonderful. She was so perfect for you and I hated myself for not being like that." His voice broke and he bit his lip. The hand returned to his arm.

"Oh Kakashi." He could hear the sadness in the other man's voice. "Is that why you were always so unhappy? I never knew."

"I didn't want you to. I didn't want your pity."

The hand slowly, hesitatingly, began to rub up and down his arm from elbow to shoulder. It shouldn't have been so soothing, so calming, but it was. He could feel his breaths come more easily and the tears slowing down.

"You never had to try to be perfect, Kakashi," Minato said after a bit. "All I wanted was for you to be happy just being who you are."

"I don't remember who I am," he whispered back. "I broke when you died and I never found the pieces. I think I've been breaking since my father died and I didn't know how to stop it. I lived because I wanted to be perfect, to earn your love and maybe have a reason to be happy finally. And then you were gone and everything went numb. Being dead seemed like just as much of a hell as being alive because I was never going to find you again."

The hand on his arm stopped rubbing and instead took hold of his wrist, pulling at him to try and make him sit up. Kakashi resisted at first. He was a complete mess in a way he couldn't ever remember being before and he really didn't want Minato looking at him like this. But at the same time he had never been able to resist doing what this man wanted and he found himself sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes. As if rubbing them more might make the redness go away.

"And now I'm alive again and your counter reached zero a second time for me," Minato murmured almost to himself. "I must have looked pretty shocked." Kakashi squirmed and looked at his lap.

"You looked horrified," he said to his hands. "I would have been too, I guess. I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you feel guilty, you know. I don't want you to feel like you have to stay here with me. I know you don't want this and I want you to be happy. It was bearable before when you were happy."

A hand tucked under his chin and encouraged him to lift his face. He met Minato's eyes for the second time and felt his heart clench. They were the same beautiful blue he remembered, shining with the same old brilliant light.

"I might need some time to get used to this," Minato said. "I'm not sure what direction the two of us will take. But I care about so much Kakashi and I don't ever want you to forget that. Wherever we go, we'll go together, okay? It's you and me now." He smiled and Kakashi stared at him with wide eyes until tears began to spill down his cheeks again. Minato blinked in surprise. "Hey now! Why more tears?"

A sob escaped him as he threw both of his arms around the other man. Minato caught him and held him tight, stroking his hair and rocking them back and forth.

"I've been so alone," Kakashi choked out, his voice muffled by cloth and skin.

"You're not alone anymore," Minato replied softly. "You'll never be alone again. I'm here now."

It didn't stop the tears but it did change them. Suddenly he realized he was crying with relief, with joy. He was filling inside with more emotions than he was equipped to handle and they overwhelmed him until they came rushing out in endless waves that left him feeling strangely at peace, cleansed.

Over Minato's shoulder he opened his hand and looked at his palm again, watching the perfect stillness of his row of zeroes, and for the first time in his life he didn't feel sad. For the first time in his life he felt something close to happiness. Sinking deeper in to Minato's embrace he almost thought he could feel the jagged pieces of himself slowly start to heal and fit back together. Every heartbeat felt new. Every breath felt like a fresh start. Minato held him just a little bit tighter and he closed his eyes, trying to find the one word to describe how he felt.

Hope.


End file.
